WIN! An Olympus TG-1 Tough Camera

We’ve already given away some killer prizes, and now we’re down to the last giveaway for 2012. How do you fancy an awesome new Olympus TG-1 Tough Camera valued at $499? Here’s how you win…

This competition is now closed.

Who Won?

Sockparty picks up the TG-1 after his amazing story about mutually-assured camera theft destruction.

It was during my first trip to London. It was my first morning there, and I was incredibly excited. I had scheduled a huge day of hitting all the touristy spots (Big Ben, Tower bridge, London Eye etc) and I had my Nikon D70 out of its snoot case and ready to go, even though I was still on the underground (which obviously in retrospect was a bit naive).

I was standing in the middle of a not-too-crowded carriage near a set of doors, when the train pulled up at Piccadilly Circus. Just as the doors started to close, a young bloke who I thought was asleep jumped up from a nearby seat, snatched the camera from my shoulder and took off.

Now, you can probably imagine how the story might have ended from there, but in fact this is where things get interesting. For some reason my gut reaction was, rather than chase the guy, to step forward and give the bastard a nice hard ankle tap just as he’d almost cleared the doors.

It turned out to be the perfect move, because as the doors shut I watched from the window as he sprawled out across the platform, A over T, landing directly on top of my camera. The train paused just long enough for me to watch him roll back over and look directly at me in shock, with the broken pieces of my camera underneath where he had landed.

So again, without thinking I flipped him the bird, pressed it up against the window and shouted “HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES, ARSEHOLE?!” before the train finally took off.

Despite the fact that my camera was stolen and subsequently destroyed, it is still one of my proudest moments. Fortunately I got the money back on travel insurance, but the most amusing part was telling the story to the Bobbies – I had to file a police report for the insurance. They all pissed themselves laughing but agreed it was one of the best stories they’d ever heard. Of course the thief was never arrested. But I guess on that day, he forgot to “mind the gap”.

Here’s hoping the TG-1 comes in handy, mate!

The Olympus TG-1 Tough is an excellent camera that packs a 12-megapixel sensor, f/2 lens with 5x telephoto zoom and 1080p video shooting abilities into a weaponised case that can withstand the wet, the dry, the mud and the dirt. It can even hold up against drops. The TG-1 is shock-proof, drop-proof, water-proof, dirt-proof and frost-proof. You’re set for underwater depths up to 12 metres, it’ll withstand a fall of up to 2 metres, a weight of 100 kilograms and can survive temperatures as low as -10 degrees C. The case is also doubly sealed for added protection. It also comes with A-GPS for geotagging your snaps and a 3-inch touchscreen.

It’s worth $499 and we’re excited to give this one away. So how do you win?

To win this amazing camera, all you have to do is tell us how your last camera died. Did you step on it? Perhaps it got wet? My last camera died after it fell off a boat while recording video. At the bottom of a lake in Austria there’s a camera that carries the last moments we ever shared together before it fell…what’s your best story?

Important dates:
• Entries close 10am Thursday December 20
• Winner also announced tomorrow
• Winner will receive the Olympus Tough TG-1 mid-late January 2013 due to end of year
• Full terms and conditions.

Our last camera was a Fujifilm Finepix. The whole family went to a theme park and instead of taking the camera bag, we opted to put the camera in the nappy bag to save space. On returning home we found that one of my daughter's used nappies had come in close contact with the camera on the way home in the car. The camera was deemed to be a biological hazard and had to be disposed of at arm's length.

I accidentally pressed the power button while I had the camera in my pocket. The lens opened up, started to expand, but there wasn't enough room in my pocket for my hand and the expanding camera lens. The lens tried its best to push my hand out of the way but it couldn't handle the pressure. Now when powering it on it sounds more like a rattle gun than a camera.

Ahh yes, the last Camera I owned. I was with my girlfriend at her old house in summer (35+ degrees), so naturally we were out in the backyard playing with the hose (as a grown man does). As it was a heavy duty waterproof Cannon Powershot D20 we were throwing it into the air while it was on a timer to take a photo of us from above. One throw went horribly wrong as we ended up throing the phone onto the highway nextdoor. Lets just say there was a lot of slow-mo yelling "Noooo...." as we saw where it was going.

owwww do i have a story for you with my last point and shoot. It was also an Olympus the model number escapes my mind but i do remember it had an orange metallic shine to it with a slide open door for the lens.
The story goes like this ...... me and my friend mike went out to take some photos at La Perouse it was around 10pm and we had ready the flash lights and some beverages to keep the conversation humorous, he was taking some long exposures and i was trying my best to get some to with a 10 second shutter speed ( i was using the torch alot ).
So then I thought I would get creative and a little daring, I put my little Oly on an old fence post that was on the sand just above the water set the timer delay to 2 seconds and set the shutter to 10. Its funny how 12 seconds of your life can be the beginning of a strange yet memorable story.
Little did I know about the way waves and tides move back then but to my shock some heavy sets started to role in , I was hoping and wishing that my little Oly would stay afloat on that peace of timber but no it was looking to go for a dip that night.
I did what any normal person would do and said "OMG OMG OMG "about 50 times , mike was like " ohhh man thats to bad " then it hit me .... you see at this time I was studying at tafe and the shots I had taken of my assignment where on an xd card that was in that camera, so I explained the situation to mike and he said only one thing to do buddy.... i said " yeh let it go and try explain the situation to my lecturer " he said " no strip down to our undies and go find it we have torches "..... genius I think ?
So we did , we got into our undies two 20 something year old men in the middle of the night on a quiet beach in La Perouse just looking for a point and shoot, I wont lie to you "the sea was angry that day my friends like an old man trying to return soup in a deli " we were shinning our torches in the water with nothing no hope , no idea what possessed us to do this but then a flicker of orange that same flicker of orange that was on my camera , I rushed up to the spot "I could barely see from the waves crashing down upon me but I knew something was their so I reached my hand in felt around and pulled out " my little oly i was so happy, " MIKE I GOT IT"
The camera was stuffed but we got back and washed the card in clean water dried it then tried to see if it work and it did...... my marks where not helped by the story though.
I will always remember that little point and shoot because of that night, and it was only after that me and mike found out that the beach we where on that night was the nudest beach at La Perouse ..... owe well we know the truth that's all that matter now.

P.S yes i used some Seinfeld for creative writing lol but it was all true i promise. hope i win the new Olympus because then i wont have any problems with the water again lol.

My last camera - a Sony Cybershot DSC-W110 - sadly broke whilst my friends and I were filming for one of our projects. We used to film Jackass-esque stuff, and on this particular shoot, I had taped and mounted my camera to the top of my helmet. The plan was to get some first person shots of me jumping over things, but after a few good scenes, I ended up hitting a small rock in the path while coming up to the jump and launched myself head-first into a tree; the camera taking the direct force of the impact. It was of course broken into pieces, and I had a pretty sore neck, but the footage we got was awesome, lol. ( Thankfully the Memory Stick somehow survived)
A camera like this would [hopefully] not break in this kind of circumstance, although my friends and I have grown out of the whole "trying to kill ourselves for the sake of some good footage" thing.

My last camera dies a month from now when a new camera turns up on the block. The new camera challenges the old camera for my attention. After an intense shootout in which all manner of people and animals are blinded from flashlights, the contestants turn to underwater shots. Unfortunately no one told the old camera that it couldn't function underwater, therefore the winner by default was the Olympus TG-1 from it's ability to withstand the elements!

My Camera died in the Australian Outback, it turned red after enduring days of severe Dust Storms, no matter how you tried to cover everything, it was a lost cause. It wasn't tough enough to survive the neverending hazards of the Outback. Everything was red, lost 4 Tyres, the Toolbox got smashed, injuries, oh, if only we were all as Tough as the TG-1!

This was a bit of a noob effort but I lost my last camera in NZ whilst bungee jumping of the Kawarau bridge near Queenstown. I'd never done it before and thought it wouldn't be scary or bad so I foolishly put my camera in my zippered jacket pocket with the plan being to get a nice selfie on the way down. Obviously this was a terrible idea as the moment I jumped off the platform I experienced pure terror and plummeted ast a vastly unexpected rate towards the water. Having the presence of mind to unzip my pocket, turn on my camera and frame up a selfie was never going to be an option. I (including my camera) ended up plunging into the river, totally soaking me and the device. I managed to salvage my holiday pics off the SD card but my little IXUS never worked again.

I like to think my camera still lives on. It was stolen when i was in Thailand, granted i may have had the odd beer, however the pictures on it were of such a nature that any self respecting gossip magazine may have paid big bucks for it. As such i am sure my wife and I live on in the form of a Thai website for over eighteens.

My last camera was a semi-decent GoPro camera I used when I was going on motorbike rides, the video quality was ok, but the bad audio recording made my bike sound so much meaner than it was, so I was happy with it.

When going for a ride to Marysville in Victoria, I had it attached near my back wheel so I could get some really cool shots of the ride, but by the time I got there the camera was gone, mount and all. I'm not sure if I lent too far and the camera snapped off, or if the mount was not the highest quality, and came loose from the vibrations of the bike.

My last camera died when i was on Year 7 camp (mum bought it for me for my birthday) at Tooma. Left it sitting on top of one of the high climbing platforms in their tree rope course.. It was destined for good things, and the teacher helped me go back to find it the next day however due to wind and rain etc we got back to the same place and it was gone... looking around i saw the case on the ground but it must have disintegrated on impact - bye bye birthday present :(

We took our canon ixus to the hospital to take the first photos of our son when he was born. The little camera had worked faultlessly for several years, then without warning packed up and died with a sad little lens motor wheeze just when it came time to take photos of the baby. His first photos were taken with an iphone belonging to one of the nurses (very kind of her). At 2 years old our boy found the camera in a draw, dropped it on its head and now its back from the dead. Its a zombie camera! Hasn't tried to eat our brains yet.

I bought a Canon S100 (beautiful camera) for my trip with some friends to South America, I captured some incredible Photos as its an incredible environment.
Anyway, near the end of our adventures we did a 3 day walking trek in Torres Del Pain National Park, when we got the the top of a massive 30min mountain climb my friend asked me if he could burrow my camera for a Photo, I was happy to lend to him and after I handed the camera to him he disappeared behind a rockwall.

about 10mins later he came back with a saddened look on his face and when I asked him what's wrong he replied with 'I've lost your camera' I was devastated! I asked him how and all that Jazz and he said it fell off a ledge whilst he was taking a selfie. I was like whatever and we started our trek back down the Mountain to our campsite before dark.

On the way back down we found my camera laying Practically in the Middle of the trail still in good form but completely unresponsive but as far as I could tell the SD card was fine so atleast I had my Photos. when I got back home a week or so later I Pulled the Photos of the trip from the SD and scrolling towards the end of the list discovered a number of photos of my friend Nudie Flashing everything below us from a ledge. I laughed for for ages and even called him brave as I remember it being extremely cold with violent winds that day haha.

My camera was killed by Superstorm Sandy. It didn't go flying through the air in the howling winds. It wasn't drowned by the storm-surge... no, it was vomited on. Yes... chunder killed my camera.

My daughter was pretty shook up from the howling winds, lack of power, lack of food, and us being stressed out beyond belief... so I guess the stress got the best of her, so she vomited all over the apartment we were renting. Imagine cleaning that up.. with no hot water, no lights, nothing to clean the towels with.. not fun.

My last camera (an Olympus tough itself) was stolen during the 4th week of a 5 week Euro trip.
Sitting in a little cafe in Rome for dinner (the camera was in a bag sitting on the ground with other things (wallet, phone, etc)), a man walked up and sat down behind us. A couple minutes later casually got up and left.
Not until after dinner that I we realised that our bag had been stolen. Very naive of us considering the notoriety of gypsies in Rome.

Lost 4 weeks of holiday snaps. Tarnished the whole trip and especially Rome. Had to buy a cheap crappy camera to make do with the rest of the holiday.

I tossed my Powershot g5 up in the air on burst mode for epic drinking group photoz, but failed to catch it on the way back down due to slight motor skill reduction (Read: I was Drunk azzzz brooooo) . With the TG-1 this shouldn't be a problem - and as a bonus, I would no longer have to choose between drinking or photography (and really, Isn't doing both what the holiday season is all about?).

My last camera was getting to the end of its life, so as part of its bucket list it wanted to holiday somewhere wild and adventurous ....... It chose my sons bedroom.
After the usual teary farewell, my camera set off in the company of my son, to explore uncharted territories and experience things that most of us only dream of.

Well, the days turned into weeks, the weeks into months ...... nothing, no contact whatsoever. We were really getting worried by this stage, so we sent out a few search parties to try and find some indication as to its whereabouts, but found nothing. It had vanished off the face of the earth.
The months became years, and although we never heard from, or saw my camera again, we take comfort in the belief that it saw and did all the things that it wanted to before it departed this earthly realm.
Although its body was never recovered, a memorial service was held to celebrate the great moments my camera shared with our family, and I promised that I would never again allow a camera of mine to embark on a journey to such an inhabitable and extreme location.